Apple iMac G5 Desktop with 20" M9250LL/A (1.80 GHz PowerPC G5, 256 MB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive)

Rating:
Summary: AWESOME!
Review: All I can say is WOW! This IMAC G5 is great. I've been a PC user for many years and I finally decided to take the plunge and go with a MAC. I 'm glad I did. OS X is the easiest and most stable OS I've ever used and I've use them all. If you are worried about moving from XP don't worry. It took me only a couple hours to get used the new OS. As far as the machine itself goes....Fast, Stylish and lots of viewing real estate. Spend the extra for the 20" you won't regret it. I haven't played many games on it mostly because I have an Xbox on a HD TV in the next room. I have not run into an issue with the Imac not being able to something the PC did. The transition was smooth and I love the fact that there is only one cord actually leaving my desk going to the wall, everything is very neat. I would recommend upgrading the RAM though. I upgraded to 1Gig. It was about 160 bucks from Crucial and took only 5 Minutes to install.

Rating:
Summary: Missing key features
Review: Box has video out to run a second monitor, but it is crippled with "Mirror Mode" only. That second monitor will only display what is already on the first monitor.

Firewire 400 is ok, but 800 is the new standard. 800 is backward compatible. Apple saved like $2 by not including both 400 and 800 Firewire jacks.

The Apple upgrades are way overpriced. If you can use a screwdriver always buy the base box from Apple and add your own HDD and RAM. Too bad Apple has no option to delete the keyboard and mouse on their "custom" order pages.

Rating:
Summary: Don't be fooled by looks
Review: First of all, this computer dies after three months. That's just how first generation Mac products are. Don't buy first generation- it WILL die. This thing freezes literally every time I use it.
Secondly, Apple doesn't help at all. Tech support doesn't do anything for you. They refuse to honor my one year hardware warranty, and I've talked to customer service AND tech support, and all they do is try to sell you Apple care- why would I want to extend coverage for a product that they already refuse to honor service for? Their service team isn't a service team at all. They are a group of trained salespeople who try to sell you their product. Why should I have to buy Apple care for something that should already be covered?
I've grown up on Macs, and loved them all my life. But the company's integrity is going down hill, and this was the last straw. Between the horrible products and the sleazy "support," I'm never buying an Apple product again. Linux, here I come...

Rating:
Summary: iMac G5 20" with pep!
Review: Having read some othe other reviews of this machine I can only say that I agree with the ones that heartily reccomend it as a great computer and piece of industrial design from Apple. It really is a sight to behold as it floats over your desk.
I bought the 20" version as in our house we needed the machine to work on a variety of uses: video editing/dvd production of our kids home videos, so that includes lots of iPhoto (for our digital camera), iTunes, iDVD and iMovie. All that eats hard drive space and consumes power, so far the iMac has worked wonderfully in all the tasks. Storing ALL our cd's in AAC format (to link to the iPod) and use in DVD production. As a home computer, it meets the requirements. Now if you start asking for a professional: video editing machine; games machine etc... then are there are specialist tools for that (PlayStation etc...) or high end PC and Macs for that. But as a VERY good Do-It-All 'Jack of all trades" machine that looks amazing, it can't be beat!
People really do ask "Where's the computer then?" as corny as that may sound!
We bought our iMac direct and upgraded the HD to 250GB, Ram to 1GIG, Bluetooth and Airport Extreme card, with wirelss keyboard and mouse. Fabulous! Watching DVD's is great too! Listening to music with Visualizer on full screen is neat (geeky but fun!).
It also handles MS Office for Mac Pro nicely too, so I'm not in the office wilderness! It really is the machine to convince any PC owner to switch.

Rating:
Summary: Another Apple Hit
Review: I have had the Apple iMac G5 20" since the middle of November. I upgraded the memory to 1GB and added the internal bluetooth module with keyboard & mouse to the base iMac G5 20". Apple is definitely cheap with only supplying 256 Mb by default. So far, I have not had any problems with it. This computer is a replacement for my Graphite Power Mac G4 400 MHz.

The start up was flawless. When I first turn on the computer, it lead me through the set up procedure. I was able to transfer all my old software and preference setting from my old Mac to my new one. The only thing that did not transfer were some license files for some shareware games that I had.

There is a definite noticeable speed up between my old Mac and this one. The 20" display is definitely worth the extra price for the extra screen real estate. Occaisionally, I like to have a couple of things going on at once. It is nice to be able to keep an eye on another program in the background while focus on another task.

I like the style of the computer. I still like to just at it and marvel at the design. The white iMac box sitting on the aluminum pedestal is a visual simple and clean.

I also openned the iMac up to see what was inside. All I had to do was losen three philips screws on the bottom and remove the back cover. A nice touch was the screws stayed attacted to the back cover. As Apple claims, the computer is very serviceable by the user.

There are two speakers on the bottom of the box which point down on at ones desk. They sound pretty good. I like playing some of my music via iTunes while I work on my computer.

Overall, I have no complaints.

I can't wait for the next realease of Mac OS X which will taken better advantage of the new G5 architecture. With all the new features previewed at the recent MacWorld expo, this computer will definitely blow the socks off all the other OS that I have used.

Rating:
Summary: Best Consumer Desktop Made (To Date)
Review: I'll be brief because there are many other reviews. I have been using a 20" iMac G5 for a couple of months, and it is the best computer that I have ever seen, by far. The Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse are worth having as well, because they get rid of 2 more cables. The footprint for the monitor/CPU combo is about the size of a hardback mystery novel, and the screen is wide and gorgeous. The CPU is very fast, but you really need to upgrade the RAM to a gigabyte to get the full effect. It's important to note that Mac OS 10.3 is the most stable (never crashes!) and virus-free operating system--as well as the most elegant and user-friendly (still, after all of these years; I know, as I use Windows regularly). Also, like other Macs, it ships with excellent, usable software, including iCal, iTunes, iPhoto, and Safari, which are all top-notch applications that are fully integrated into the OS. I can't say enough good things about this quiet, elegant, fast machine.

Rating:
Summary: Still love the mac...
Review: I've been using my new iMac for just a few days after my 800mhz G4 iMac died after only two years (hard drive and dvd drive failure according to tech support). Luckily the repair center I took my old computer to for repair (thank God for Applecare btw...) offers trade-ins and I decided to upgrade to a G5. For some reason the G5's 17" screen one looked smaller than the G4's so I went with the 20" instead of upgrading the RAM. I think I made a wise decision every time I look at the screen! It is HUGE! The processor speed is considerably faster than my old computer so I can live without the extra RAM for now. I'm still kinda bummed about my old iMac's hardrive and it has me cautious about moving the monitor/computer too much since it's all one unit but I'm probably just being paranoid. The only complaint I had was trying to get all my iPod mp3's back onto the new computer but that's another review. Also, Virtual PC 6.1 does NOT work on the G5..you'll need to upgrade to version 7.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful machine to work with
Review: Last month I received a G5 iMac as my primary machine at work. The only option that I added was additional RAM (1 GB total), though I would opt for bluetooth for keyboard and mouse + airport for ethernet if I had purchased the machine for home use. As it is, though, the machine is a pleasure to use. Below are a few of my highlights:

The machine is speedy - even with multiple applications open, large apps such as Eclipse start quickly

The screen is large and crisp. Plenty of gorgeous real estate.

The keyboard and mouse (I'm using the factory 1 button optical, despite the fact that I have used 3 button units for years) are comfortable and feel solid.

The machine is just beautiful. At first I wasn't sure if I liked the styling, but I have really grown to appreciate its lines + the simplicity of the all-in-one design. Fit and finish are superb - this is a machine that looks and feels great.

This is really one of the finest iMacs, if not one of the finest Macs, yet. If you aren't yet a Mac user, the experience of using one of these machines will win you over.

Rating:
Summary: Apple or Lemon?
Review: My experience over the past 3 months with the Imac G5 has been that no manufacturer is infallible, and that I should have been wary of the legions of Mac fans on a mission to convert me. This machine has been a host of trouble from the time I took it out of the box. From day one I had perpetual kernal panics and software crashes. Tech support told me it was likely defective RAM, so I had both RAM sticks replaced, to no avail. Then, under warrranty a techniciam came to my house and replaced the logic board. This still did not fix the problem. In addition after the new logic board the airport extreme card would not reliably communicate with the airport express base station only 4 feet away. I have been through every hardware test, and probably every tech suport person at Apple in California and Canada knows me by now. Most recently tech support told me they are out of ideas, and suggested I bring the machime to my local Apple store. I did, and the folks at the "Genius Bar" stared at me blankly and suggested I call tech support. Maybe I should have stuck with the Dell pc's that never caused me a problem, other then with spyware- I could have always just done my photography and graphics work on a pc not connected to the Web.

Rating:
Summary: worth the wait
Review: My only problem with my G5 20" was that corporate policy forced me to go through an unresponsive dealer, who only shipped once I told them the Apple store could send me one the same day. Limitations are exaggerated. Game geeks will want to buy a box they can continually upgrade, but they would probably not buy a Mac anyway. For the average user, this is a great machine -- fast, usable out of the box, almost ridiculously easy to set up. I used the option of setting up from my old Mac via FireWire and in less than an hour almost all my existing applications and personal settings were there. I took a swim while the Mac did the work (summer here).

I am running the power save settings on highest performance, and the fan noise (a problem with earlier 20" models, especially at higher-voltage parts of the planet) is barely perceptible.

I know it's not as fast as a good Dell box. I have 2 of those running Linux. But they are ugly to look at, and time saved on running things faster is lost on time spent fiddling to make things work. I run research stuff on the Linux boxes when I need to set big runs going which take hours, but "productivity" and ("non-productivity", like typing this review, I do on the Mac.

If I had to use only one computer, the Mac could do everything I do now.

The only extra I bought was 2Gbytes of non-Apple RAM. I recommend to anyone buying one of these to do this. You won't have to open the box again for a long time.